


After Hours

by absoluterabbit



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-04
Updated: 2020-09-04
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:41:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26292070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/absoluterabbit/pseuds/absoluterabbit
Summary: Lexa Woods is a VP at a prominent tech company called VersaTek in New York City. She's risen in the ranks quite quickly, but when she uncovers an internal scandal she is suddenly out of her depth and worried about her and the company's future. Will the annoying accountant Clarke Griffin be able to help, or will she also turn out to be in on the scandal?
Relationships: Clarke Griffin & Lexa, Clarke Griffin/Lexa
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Decided to try out writing during COVID quarantine. Looking for any and all feedback, especially around pacing, sentence structure, and characterizations. I'll be honest when I fist started this story, I wasn't planning on it being fanfic, so I need to hone in some of the characters a little better. This is just the start of what I'm hoping will be a long story.

Lexa Woods glanced at her watch discreetly and was disappointed when she saw it was only seven thirty. The award ceremony had finished at seven, but the cocktail hour was supposed to last until nine, and as one of the VPs at VersaTek she was obligated to stay and show face. She had been listening to Roan Winter ramble on about his amazing sales team, who were ‘the sole reason they had hit this years’ fiscal foals’ for the last thirty minutes. It could not possibly have been VersaTek’s cutting edge sentiment analysis capabilities, or maybe their ridiculously high profit margins which came from operational efficiencies her team orchestrated, which led to this year’s success. No, clearly a bunch of golf bros, who read off prefab slides were the heroes here. The number of sales awards earlier in the night certainly reflected that. 

Fortunately, Lexa didn’t need external recognition to know she was invaluable to VersaTek. She excelled at identifying process chokepoints and then bringing in the right teams and tools to fix them. But while many of her colleagues had similar skills, nobody could walk in and take over a room like Lexa. The confidence and calm she conducted herself with often belied her young age. It’s what allowed her to move up from developer, to systems architect to management, and eventually VP in only 12 years from her start at VersaTek, post-graduation. 

It was due to this success, and her standing as one of the few female leaders in her industry, she found herself being asked to mentor other young professionals regularly. She never accepted, though. If she had time to contemplate it, she would probably feel bad about this fact, but she didn’t have patience for all of the feelings mentees had. Her boardroom confidence came from the knowledge that she was doing a job. Business was business. She never yelled, simply because there was no need for that level of emotional investment. If a problem existed, there was almost certainly a solution, as long as you could put your emotions aside long enough to reach it. She would never understand the Roan Winters of the world. She was pretty sure Roan spent more time talking about how great his team was, than actually doing anything. But she guessed that was the point. Sales were a different breed, and he seemed to get the job done, she just wished he would talk about it somewhere else. 

When she thought she couldn’t take it any longer, Roan went to take another sip of his beer, only to tilt it all the way back and be left disappointed. 

“Guess I need a refill. Can I get you anything?” Leave it to the Sales VP to always be schmoozing. 

Taking the gift the universe granted her, Lexa smiled politely but shook her head “No thanks Roan, I’ll catch you later. Congrats on the strong finish this year though. Hoping for an even stronger Q1!”, she winked. 

“Oh you can count on it!” Roan grinned excitedly, highlighting the rosy alcohol-induced glow on his too tan cheeks. 

At Roan’s obvious enthusiasm, a genuine smile flitted across Lexa’s face. She may not relate to him or think like him, but she knew how to get along with anyone. Having the rest of the leadership team on her side was what made the whole VersaTek world go round. Actively pulling the strings on the VersaTek machine so easily always made her feel good. 

She tugged at her shirt cuffs so they stayed a perfect ¼ of an inch past her black jacket sleeves, and glanced around briefly to see how many people were still there. Seeing a few of the managers missing, Lexa decided it was safe to make her exit. She ran her hands through her long brown hair in a habitual manner as she walked towards the coat check area. As she approached, she glanced down and reached into her jacket to withdraw her brown leather wallet and pull out the ticket stub and tip for the attendant. Before she could hand it over though, she was pushed roughly to the side by a man who shoved his own ticket at the attendant and demandingly said, “Jacket now, I’m in a hurry”. The attendant nodded, too politely in Lexa’s opinion, and went to retrieve the man’s coat for him. 

“Ahem” Lexa cleared her throat, but the man didn’t react. 

“Excuse me, sir” She tried again, coolly. This time he looked over his shoulder. 

“Are you talking to me?” He asked, rudely, not even bothering to turn around fully. 

“I understand you’re in a hurry, but it seems unwise to behave so belligerently around your colleagues. Who knows who may be watching, or who you may ‘run into’.” 

At that, the man fully turned around, clearly trying to make his physical presence known. “Lady, I don’t know who you are, or what your problem is, I just need my girlfriends coat so I can leave.” 

“I see.” Was all Lexa said. Before the man could turn back to the attendant, she glanced at the name tag he had still stuck to his jacket lapel. She was sure Finn Collins’ manager would love to hear about his professionalism this evening. 

Lexa watched as he exited, and saw him roughly grab a small blonde woman by the arm and pull her with him. Must be the girlfriend who needed her coat. The blonde looked back apologetically at the small group of people she had been chatting with moments earlier. It was a shame, Lexa thought to herself, the girlfriend was actually kind of cute. She certainly had phenomenal legs, which Lexa could see perfectly outlined by the form fitting gray cotton dress the girl was wearing. Unfortunately, anyone who could stand to be with a man like that for more than 10 seconds was probably equally insufferable. 

The cab ride back to the upper east side was short, only about 15 minutes. She probably should have walked but her heels were killing her, and she had already gone for a 4 mile run in the park earlier that morning. Seeing the familiar circle driveway in front of her classic New York City high rise, Lexa breathed a sigh of relief. No one would know by watching her, but networking at corporate events was one of the least enjoyable aspects of her job. As she passed through the revolving door to her building, the clicking of her heels on the marble floor alerted the doorman to her presence. 

“Early night, Ms. Woods?”

“Hey Mike. Don’t tell anyone, but I ducked out early.” She grinned and winked conspiratorially. Lexa had only been living in the building for the last 5 years, but Mike had been working the night shift at least twice as long. He was used to seeing the residents coming and going at all hours, but Lexa in particular seemed to live at her office most of the time. Coming home before eight on a Wednesday night was a rarity for the woman, to say the least. 

The elevator dinged loudly as it reached the 35th floor. Lexa’s unit was an east facing unit. Her friends joked about her being the rich friend, but even she didn’t have the generations of wealth that afforded a condo overlooking the park. Instead, she was quite happy with her building a few blocks east. The view wasn’t phenomenal, but she was rarely home anyway. Her unit was walking distance to the park and to her office, and that was all that really mattered to her. 

After brushing her teeth, and dressing down to a pair of boxers and an oversized t-shirt, she relaxed into her king-sized bed, opening her phone to the company directory. Quickly typing out “Finn Collins” from earlier, she returned no results. Maybe Finn was a middle name? She attempted a search for Collins, and then reviewed all the Finns just in case, but none of the headshots matched the man she saw earlier. She was about to give up, when one headshot in particular caught her eye. Clarke Griffin, CPA. That was the girlfriend with the coat. Damn, so Finn must have been her boyfriend. It was their end of year party, so partners were invited. No wonder he was such a dick. He knew Lexa had no idea who he was. The fact that he’d still risk his girlfriend’s reputation was even more damning of his character. 

Part of Lexa wanted to send a note to Clarke’s manager in Accounting anyway, documenting the conduct of her boyfriend. But that would just be petty, and Lexa hated when people let their emotions drive their business conduct. She would not be petty. No, dating that loser seemed to be consequence enough. 

“Alexa, Goodnight” She murmured to the smart system next to her bed. Her friends got it for her as a joke, due to the whole Lexa Alexa thing, but she found she quite liked her Alexa, even if it was probably mining her every conversation. A moment later, she heard the rolling thunder and pitter patter of rain she had programmed the system to queue at her command. Never one plagued by insomnia, she knew she’d be asleep before the fifteen minute storm passed.


	2. Chapter 2

“Oscar, can you get me the FY21 pipeline forecasts from accounting for me?” Lexa shouted through her open door. Her entire team sat in 3 rows of desks just outside her glass-paned office. The office was the stereotypical ‘industrial chic’ that she thought almost every tech startup emulated. The open office plus concrete floors, exposed piping, and an unfinished ceiling were hell when it came to noise management, but at least she could shout at her employees from afar and they could hear her. Well at least most of the time.

“Oscar!” she yelled again, when she received no response.

Squinting, she could see he had those damn earbuds in again. The office chair she was reclining in creaked as she rolled her eyes and put her feet back on the floor, preparing to walk to the accounting department herself. She could use the exercise anyway. Sitting was the new smoking as they said, and a lot less fun if you asked her.

The office was relatively quiet, given it was only 8 AM. Most of the company arrived just a few minutes before 9. That was true for most of her team as well, but Oscar and a few others were in early since they were catching up from the end of quarter cram last week. She nodded politely at the few people she passed, making a mental note of who was coming in early. Long hours weren’t essential to being a strong employee in her book, but she was always looking for people willing to go the extra mile, so she kept track anyway. You never knew who would be looking for a lateral move later in their career.

The first desk she ran into in accounting was, Anya Singh, one of the financial analysts. She and Anya actually started at VersaTek at the same time, both right out of graduate school. Anya was clearly entranced by whatever spreadsheet she was working on, not noticing Lexa’s arrival. The tall brunette leaned over the short divider casually, peeking around Anya’s monitor.

“Hey An!”

“Jesus, Lex. You scared me.” Anya held her left hand to her chest willing her heart rate to return to normal. At the same time, she used her right to push her long hair out of her eyes as she leaned back in her chair. “What brings you to our neck of the woods? You usually send Oscar or one of your other plebes.”

“Eh, I thought I could use the walk. And we haven’t caught up in ages. How’s the new puppy? Are you still pretending she’s not got you completely whipped?”

“First of all, Luna is no longer a puppy, she’s over a year old now. Fully potty trained I might add. You’ve clearly been too caught up being a VP to come by my place. But in answer to your question, yesterday I grilled a whole extra burger for her, medium rare, which is her favorite, if you must know.”

“Wow that’s worse than I feared. Has you started a doggy college fund for her yet?”

“I hadn’t thought of that, but now that you mention it.... Speaking of whipped, how’s Costia?” Anya blinked her eyes at the brunette innocently.

“Mmm... decidedly not whipped. I haven’t seen her in a couple of months, actually.”

“Probably for the best. She always went all googly eyed around you. It was a little pathetic, I kind of felt bad for the girl.”

“Costia was not a girl, she was twenty eight! You make me sound like a monster. Honestly, we just never really got past the casual fling phase. Eventually it didn’t make sense to continue. It was mutual.”

“Whatever you say, heartbreaker.” Anya looked at her skeptically.

Lexa really didn’t consider herself a heartbreaker, as Anya so kindly put it. She was well aware of her penchant for putting work above intimate relationships, but she was always up front about that fact. She had relationships that went on for months, some even lasted years, but eventually her exes found someone who could actually go to dinner on a Friday night without scheduling it a month in advance, and they moved on. No hard feelings. Or so she told herself.

“Alright, now that we’ve gotten through pleasantries, what do you need from me? I imagine you didn’t come over here just to stretch your legs. Although, legs like those are welcome any time.”

Lexa rolled her eyes. She tried to maintain a professional air about her at all times, but she didn’t really see the point with Anya. The analyst had held Lexa’s hair in a bar bathroom one too many times during those first few years out of school.

“Will these legs help me get the latest Q1 forecasts?” Lexa waggled her eyes suggestively.

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, girl. On multiple levels. Let me see if one of our interns is available to pull some reports. Give me a second.”

As Anya went to hunt down some poor newbie, Lexa leaned against the row of desks, scanning the room. It crossed her mind that Clarke, the coat girl with the rude boyfriend, probably sat somewhere around here. Although given her taste in men, she doubted that coat girl was the kind of employee who would come in an hour early just for the sake of a job well done. A quick scan confirmed her suspicions. Actually, she hardly recognized anyone. Their employee retention year-over-year was top notch, at just under 95%, which meant the multitude of new faces was a sign of their massive growth. Everyone was waiting out their options until the company went public, which was almost sure to happen in the next 2-3 years. She wondered how long coat girl had actually been working here. She guessed only a few months or she would have remembered her.

Lexa straightened up as she observed Anya coming towards her with a young looking girl in tow. Anya was trekking back faster than seemed necessary, leaving the girl sort of jogging behind her, looking uncomfortable in khakis and a stuffy blue blouse.

“Lexa, this is Kaila Smith, one of the summer interns. Kaila, this is Lexa Woods, our VP OPs. She needs a couple of reports pulled for her board deck, looking mainly at the weighted new sales forecast for Q1. Can you help her out with that?”

Kaila looked up briefly, and Lexa saw her tight curls bounce gently, the only indication of the tiny nod of acknowledgement she gave. The VP smiled instinctively. Kaila may feel over her head here, but the truth was, she was far ahead of where Lexa was at that age. Her mind went back to the bartending gig she had at “The O”, which was a campus bar at OSU most frequented by frat boys. She may have only been hired for her looks, but she made good money, which helped her afford the move to NYC when she got her entry level developer job at VersaTek. Still, not exactly professional career advancement.

Trying to be kind to the young woman, Lexa smiled brightly and injected some enthusiasm into her voice. “Nice to meet you Kaila! Why don’t you follow me back to my office where we can review the slides I have. Maybe you can add some suggestions on which reports to include as well.”

Fairly certain that Kaila was not at all reassured, she turned and headed back towards her office, gesturing for the girl to follow. It turned out what Kaila lacked in confidence, she made up for in skill. She was a finance major at Fordham, in her Junior year, and was apparently a wizard with excel. After going over the numbers that were needed, Kaila quickly threw together some clean looking graphs and spoke confidently about what each one represented. Whatever shyness was present earlier went away when talking about the work in front of her. Lexa knew the board would love the visuals and of course the projections they were forecasting. This was exactly the type of female talent they needed at the organization. While Lexa may not have been mentor material, she could at least make sure good talent wasn’t overlooked.

“Hey Kaila, fantastic work with these. Who is your manager here? I’d love to let them know what a nice job you did.”

Relapsing into some of her former shyness, Kaila’s eyes flitted to the side, “That’s really nice of you to say Ms. Woods. Um, my manager’s name is Clarke Griffin. She works in accounting.”

“Lexa’s fine, I’m not your professor.” Lexa smiled, trying to conceal her surprise at Clarke’s name resurfacing so quickly. “I’ll be sure to let Clarke know what a good job you did. If I think of any other project’s for you, I’ll let you know!”.

“Thanks Ms. Woods, I mean Lexa,” The young woman stammered, and then promptly shot out of her office.

Lexa tried not to feel insulted. Generally, being intimidating was a good thing. Being 5’ 9” plus heels, and having a preference for tailored suits, she could hold her own at board and executive meetings, even when the clientele was primarily older white males. In situations like these though, she wished she was a little better at being relatable. She guessed it was a good thing she was a VP and not a people manager anymore.

Before she could forget, she looked up Clarke Griffin in the company directory for the second time in 12 hours. Looking at the headshot, she was reminded of the boyfriend from the other night. Already annoyed again at the memory, she decided she better send the email quickly, before she changed her mind entirely, and some poor intern suffered from it.

_Ms. Griffin,_

_I had the pleasure of working with Kaila Smith earlier today. She did an excellent job, and I would strongly recommend we extend a formal offer to her, effective post-graduation. You may share this recommendation with your manager assuming you do not have the authority to request this yourself._

_Alexandria Woods_   
_VP of Operations_

She couldn’t help but insert the small slight at the end of the message. It was unlike Lexa to be so outwardly rude, but she did not have time to dwell on it. She had calls to make and meetings to attend.

...

The rest of Lexa’s day was packed with intra-departmental meetings, as well as some last minute scrambling to fit everything into the board deck for the meeting at five thirty that evening. By five, there was the traditional mass exodus. She knew in twenty minutes it would only be her and the leadership team left. A yawn threatened to escape, and she knew she’d have to amp herself up for the rest of the night. The meeting itself should be done by 7:30, but she preferred to stay in her office afterwards to jot down her notes and reflect on what the board liked or didn’t like while her memory was still fresh. Just before she closed her laptop to head to the kitchen, she heard the familiar bing of an incoming message. It was from that CPA woman, Clarke.

_Ms. Woods,_

_I will pass along the feedback to Kaila. She certainly deserves the recognition._

_I don’t believe we’ve had the pleasure of meeting yet. While your gesture is appreciated, I can assure you I am capable of advocating for my team members without assistance._

_Clarke Griffin_   
_Director - Accounting_

Lexa laughed out loud and read the message again. She could practically hear the sarcasm in the CPAs response. It was ballsy, the VP had to admit. There was nothing overtly offensive in the response either, so it would never come back to bite her. Clearly coat girl had good judgement in some areas of her life. But wait, why did her signature say director? Lexa thought the woman was a CPA, at least that’s what was written in the company directory. She ought to be a little more careful with who she was picking fights with. While a VP was technically above a director, it was clear she held some clout in the organization.

The brunette’s smart watch dinged, indicating she only had ten minutes until the board meeting. Picking up her laptop, notepad, pen, and an empty coffee mug from earlier that day, she headed over to the large conference room on the other side of the office. She would stop in the kitchen on her way over to fill up her coffee. They had the world’s most ostentatious coffee dispenser that could make cappuccinos, espresso, mochas, or anything else your heart desired. Lexa preferred her coffee black. Less hassle and the only way to maintain her flat stomach. For black coffee, the machine was complete overkill, but she figured the company needed to maintain their image.

When she arrived at the kitchen, Lexa placed her items carefully on the white quartz countertop, keeping hold of her mug for the refill. The machine made a faint gurgling noise as the coffee was dispensed. Meanwhile, the VP was mentally running through all of her talking points, making sure she could deliver them clearly and concisely during her portion of the presentation. The coffee machine dinged, indicating her mug was full. Still thinking about the talk track she planned, she absentmindedly picked up her mug and turned back to fetch her things.

As she turned, a body collided roughly with her right arm. Lexa managed to hold onto the mug, but she could feel the hot coffee splash onto her chest and stomach.

“Ow, what the fuck!” She yelled, unable to stop her outcry at the scalding temperature. Holding her previously white shirt away from her torso, Lexa looked up to see who had run into her.

“Oh my gosh, I am so sorry! I’m running late and I….” The small blonde woman standing in front of her paused as she met Lexa’s cold stare, recognition and faint annoyance apparent on her face.

“No please continue, I want to hear about these plans that are much more important than me arriving at the board meeting without my skin melted to the inside of my shirt .”

At the mention of board meeting, any annoyance on the blondes face disappeared, and the woman spurred into action. “I can fix it, hold on!”

She was looking increasingly desperate as she threw open the cabinets in search of a solution. A few seconds later, she thrust a wad of paper towels into Lexa’s face, but before Lexa could even utter a sarcastic thank you, she was off running towards the fridge.

“My nana says seltzer gets out any stain.” Clarke supplied hopefully, returning with an open can of soda water. Without any hesitation, she grabbed the paper towels back from a now slightly stunned Lexa, doused them in seltzer, and began to blot them all over Lexa’s chest.

After a few more seconds of forceful blotting, it was clear the stain was not going anywhere. Nana was apparently not as wise as Clarke thought. At least the temperature was no longer blistering.

Knowing that the board meeting would be starting any minute, Lexa grabbed the blonde’s hands, stopping their motion and pushing them away from her body.

“If you’re done feeling me up, I have a meeting to attend. I don’t suppose you have an extra shirt I could wear.” Lexa stated coolly, not actually expecting a response. They weren’t even the same size, and the VP stored an extra shirt in her office for just this occasion, but she wouldn’t mind seeing Clarke sweat a little.

“Uh, you could take mine?” The small blonde offered, somewhat desperately, as she started to unbutton the blouse she was wearing.

“Woah!” Lexa rushed forward placing her hands gently on the blonde’s arm to stop her going any further. “No, that’s alright, I can’t afford a lawsuit on top of a new outfit.”

Clarke’s cheeks burned bright red at her touch. “That was stupid, wasn’t it? I really am sorry, if I had an extra shirt I would give it to you.”

Remembering that she herself was running late, and was also still annoyed at the blonde’s error, Lexa pulled her hands back and resumed her stiff posture.

“Unfortunately, you don’t, so little good that does. I really need to go to this meeting now, and it sounds like you’re also running late. No doubt due to poor time management.” Lexa wasn’t normally so harsh, but she was thrown off. First by the accident, and second by this woman showing up in her life for the 3rd time in 24 hours. They did work together she supposed, it’s not exactly like the universe was speaking to her.

Before the blonde woman had a chance to respond, the VP picked up her things and started back towards her office, placing her now empty mug in the sink. It was a lost cause at this point. She had just five minutes to get back to her office for her new shirt, change, and then get back to the conference room by 5:30.

...

The main conference room at VersaTek was designed to impress. In the center of the room was a large, solid oak table surrounded by about 20 high-backed leather office chairs. Three of the surrounding walls were built of solid glass, a swinging door nested in each. The last wall, located at the far end of the table was the only solid wall, painted black. Lowered in front of that was a projector screen which Lexa could see was already displaying the title slide of their deck. Next to the screen stood the VersaTek CEO, Marcus Kane, speaking animatedly to the room. Groaning internally at her lateness, Lexa cracked open the door in the far back and slid soundlessly into the dim room. Luckily, Roan had saved her a seat right by the door. It paid to be friendly with sales.

Despite the chaos that preceded the meeting, the presentation went very well. The board was clearly pleased with last year’s metrics, and were also excited to see some of the changes the leadership team had slated for the coming year. Specifically, Lexa had presented several systems upgrades and vendor consolidation initiatives that would drastically increase their margins for their core analytics services. Any time you could do more work for less money, the board was happy.

The meeting concluded just after 7:30. As planned, Lexa headed back to her office to clean up her notes, answer a few more emails, and maybe have a nightcap before heading out. She kept a bottle of Glenlivet 18 year scotch in her desk drawer for the occasional after hours celebration, or, on rare occasions, to take the edge off of a particularly long day. Between the success of the presentation and the stress of her run in with the CPA, scratch that, accounting director, she felt two fingers of scotch was warranted.

She could feel the burn of the amber liquid in her throat as she took her first sip. Humming happily to herself she opened up her laptop to review her email. At the top of the inbox was another email from Clarke, this one was a new thread titled “Re: New Shirt”.

_Ms. Woods,_

_I apologize again for our run in earlier today. I get the feeling you are not my number one fan. I’m not sure what I did to offend you, at least prior to scalding you with hot coffee, but I will admit the coffee incident was on me. Enclosed is an e-gift card to Brooks Brothers so you can purchase a replacement for your ruined shirt. I hear they also have some sales on common decency while you’re at it. You know, in case you’re running low._

_Clarke_

True to her word, there was a 75 dollar gift card included in the message. Sighing, Lexa had to admit she had been quite harsh to the woman, both in her earlier email and their encounter in the kitchen. If she was being honest, she was also distracted when she was filling up her mug. She might have heard her coming around the corner if she was paying more attention. Next time she ran into the director she would be sure to apologize be more professional. For now, she replied briefly to the message.

_Clarke,_

_Thanks for your message. I will check to see if they have any fluid repellent shirts available. It might save us both some time and money in the future._

_Unfortunately they sold out of common decency on Wednesday, it would appear your intel is somewhat out of date._

_Lexa._

_P.s. I may have been a bit distracted when you ran into me earlier. It’s possible the incident was not entirely your fault. However, if you repeat that to anyone, I will deny it._

Not exactly an apology. But between the informal signoff and postscript, hopefully the director would get the message. No hard feelings.

Having sent her last email, she moved on to reviewing the board notes. She was just about to wrap up and head home when she noticed something odd after comparing the data set from the board meeting, to one of the reports she had saved locally on her computer. Confused, she reviewed the numbers again, hoping they would make more sense. She did not recognize several of the accounting line items charged under her technology and operations budget.

The line items were all for ex-vendors, which she had eliminated as part of her technology consolidation efforts. The line items totaled to less than 500k annually, which was not a significant part of her budget, small enough that she missed it when going through her slides earlier that day. Still. She’d have to talk to Anya about it tomorrow. She didn’t want to raise alarm bells too soon. If it was a mistake, as she hoped, she’d like to get it cleared up quickly with little fanfare. If it was intentional, it would have to have been inserted by someone within Executive leadership. Nobody else had access to modify the reports used for the board decks, and the only reason to add in line items to the budget is if those funds we’re not being used for their intended purpose.


	3. Chapter 3

The morning sun peeked through the cracks of the heavy beige curtains that hung in Clarke’s bedroom. Had someone been watching, they would have observed the sun ray slowly climb up the floor onto the queen sized mattress, and eventually land across the face of the sleeping blonde, rousing her from slumber. She preferred it when she could wake up naturally, before her alarm began blaring at 6:15 on the dot. It was mornings like these where she almost didn’t need coffee to get her going. Especially after her morning yoga session at the studio, she hardly needed the extra boost from a good latte. Key word being hardly. She would never turn down a latte. The adorable little cafe on the corner made the best ones. 

On her way to the train, the sound of a jackhammer breaking up a nearby sidewalk cut through her many jumbled thoughts. A little further ahead, she could hear the blaring of horns, no doubt from travellers who naively thought a car or taxi was an effective means of travel at this time of day. Or possibly, it was some stuffy executive who refused to sink so low as to let their shoes touch the dirty grate of the New York City subway. That was definitely it. Either way, it was only 7:30 and the city was already wide awake, if it ever went to sleep. 

Many people found the city to be too loud. It was one of the things that worried her when moving to the city. She grew up in the Chicago suburbs, which was surrounded by lakefront and forest preserves. The loudest sounds she heard at night were the whirring of cicadas on summer nights. Surprisingly though, in the short amount of time she’d been here, she fell in love with the constant bustle of the city. Her boyfriend, Finn, on the other hand, the sole reason they moved here she might add, had no such love for the constant street sounds in Hell’s Kitchen. He worked late nights as a bartender, true, but damn it felt like an overzealous mosquito could rouse the man. She suggested earplugs many times, but he refused. Of course, it was always her fault somehow when he woke up, too. 

She had been with Finn for over 5 years. They met her senior year of college, at University of Miami and ended up working in different departments at the same accounting firm right out of college. He was a hardworking guy, and you had to be blind to think he wasn’t good looking. Every few months they would run into each other at work, and he would ask her out on a date. She repeatedly made excuses, but after two years of attempts, she finally admitted she was just making excuses, and agreed to go on a date with him. He was of course, the perfect gentleman, but what surprised Clarke was how much she enjoyed talking to him. For the next 3 years after that, things went well for both of them. It helped having a shared place of employment, but one of the best things about their relationship was how they could talk about almost any topic for hours on end. Work, politics, the difference between apple cider and apple juice. Anyone observing would think they were in a heated argument, but that was just the passion they brought to the discussion. 

Something changed around the 3 year mark, however. Clarke noticed Finn coming home later and later, often going straight to his video game setup in the den. When prompted, he would say everything was fine, he was just a little tired from work. One day, a round of layoffs happened at the firm. Clarke made the cut, but Finn didn’t. Expecting Finn to be upset, she picked up dinner from his favorite barbecue joint, along with a giant slice of their decadent chocolate cake, and a bottle of wine. However, when she got home, Finn wasn’t sad at all. He said this was the best day of his life. After months of slogging away with no promotion in sight, and deciding he hated sitting at a desk all day, the layoff gave him an excuse to pursue other professional dreams. That night they talked for hours about all the possibilities for what his next move might be. It was one of the better conversations she had with him in months. Things seemed to be looking up finally. 

Unfortunately, the excitement was short lived. Finn tried out some more hands-on gigs, since his biggest complaint was that sitting at a desk was boring to him. He tried out construction first, which lasted a couple of months, but he was just too physically exhausted after each day to continue long term. After that, he thought maybe he’d become a firefighter, only to find he was woefully unprepared for the academic and physical exams needed just to get on the list for the academy. About a year later, he heard of a bartender job opening up at his buddy’s place in New York City. Clarke was skeptical. What would make this endeavor any different than his other attempts? And New York City would be a big change. Expensive too. At the same time, Clarke had never really liked Miami. It was just where she was able to find a job out of college, and she was now pushing 7 years at the same firm. She’d be thirty by the end of the year, and she’d never done anything remotely surprising. So, even though she was pretty sure this would be just another failure for Finn, she didn’t put up a fight. 

Really, the biggest downside to the move was taking a demotion in order to find a job on such short notice. When VersaTek offered her the role, she was hesitant, expressing her concerns about taking a step backwards. As part of her offer, they promised to fast track her to a management position as soon as one opened up. Luckily for her, one of the managers quit only a few weeks in after deciding he’d rather be a stay at home dad. 

Clarke would have been happy just being a manager, but a few quarters later, when a director position opened up, she couldn’t justify not even going for it. There were several rounds of interviews with the other director, the VP of accounting, and their CEO. Plus, she spent weeks putting together a proposal for the changes she would like to implement in the first 30, 60 and 90 days as director. She heard from some internal folks that the decision was close, but she beat out several internal and external applicants for the role. 

All in all, 30 wasn’t looking too bad for the blonde. Two promotions in less than a year, plus as much as Finn complained about the city noise and the lack of sleep, he’d been working the bartender gig for almost a year now with no signs of quitting. Maybe he was finally finding his calling. Their date nights had even been more frequent since the move. Clarke wouldn’t say they were quite back to their old selves, but they could go out with each other, or some friends and come home without starting a fight most of the time. 

As the subway doors opened to her stop her thoughts returned to her pending to do list for the day. In the few weeks since she was promoted, she felt like she was playing a constant game of catch-up. It was exhilarating in many ways, as long as she could keep the imposter syndrome at bay. VPs like that Lexa Woods woman really didn’t help one bit with her feelings of inferiority. 

The tone the VP took from the very first email completely threw Clarke off guard. What should have been a nice, congratulatory email about her intern Kaila was strangely snarky. The coffee incident later that day was a serious bout of bad luck, but it was still just an honest mistake. The brunette had appeared to hate her from the instant they made eye-contact. The blonde had such a positive reception from all the VersaTek employees since she started, that getting treated so coldly by the woman was not a pleasant feeling. Although, something in the back of her mind recalled the last message she received late last night. It had the same snarky tone, but she detected the slight bit of remorse from the VP. Maybe even a bit of playfulness. 

Not one to back down from a fight, that was all the opening she needed. In that moment she vowed to herself that if they ever found themselves crossing paths at work again, she’d happily prove every assumption the VP had about her wrong. With that thought echoing in her head, she pushed through the gold-trimmed turnstile doors, scanned her badge in the cavernous lobby, and rode the elevator up to the 27th floor, ready to start her day. 

…

“Knock Knock” A voice jolted Clarke out of her focus. It was 2 pm and Clarke was entirely ensconced in one of the departmental budgets. 

“Anya! Hey! What’s up?” Clarke smiled, recognizing the dark haired woman. Not having worked at VersaTek very long, she wasn’t familiar with everyone outside of the CPAs and CPA managers, but she’d seen her around once or twice. 

“I just wanted to get your opinion on something real quick. Do you have a minute to come with me?” 

The analyst said seriously.

That was odd. What could Anya possibly need from Clarke that she couldn’t ask for right here? Also, was it just her, or did the brunette’s voice sound tinged with a bit of concern? Curious to know what this could be about, and not about to turn down a request from their most senior analyst, the accounting director simply nodded and got up from her chair to follow. 

Anya’s quick steps slowed abruptly, signaling their approach to their destination. Clarke looked up at the name on the office door and paled. Lexa Woods’s office. The universe must have had it out for her this week! She wiped her now sweating palms on her maroon dress pants, and then attempted to relax them at her sides as Anya knocked gently on the VPs door to announce their arrival. 

“Come in”, Clarke could hear the VP call from inside her office. Anya ushered Clarke in ahead of her, and then to the blonde’s surprise, waved a quick goodbye to them both, shut the door gently and left. Apparently she was just the delivery woman? Not sure exactly where to sit, she hovered lamely by the closed door waiting for directions, or at least some sort of explanation. Lexa clearly sensed her apprehension. 

“Take a seat, please. And relax. I promise I haven’t summoned you in here to fire you. Or kill you.” The brunette spun her desk chair around and gestured to the brown leather couch in front of her. 

The director laughed nervously, and tentatively took a seat, not bothering with a response. 

“So, you are probably wondering why you are here. Before I tell you anything else, I want to preface it by informing you that nothing I say can leave this room. Can I have your assurance of that?” 

Confused, but also curious, and not even sure if she was in a position to say no, Clarke nodded and responded “Yes, of course” as confidently as she could muster. 

“Good. I know we got off on the wrong foot yesterday. Let’s just chalk it up to a misunderstanding. I’ve asked you here for two reasons. Number one, Anya tells me that everyone in her department knows you are one of the most meticulous accountants we have.”

Clarke blushed at this. Appreciating the compliment.

“And two, I need someone newer, who I know doesn’t have too many connections with the top brass. I’m hoping I am wrong about my suspicions, but in the event I am not, I really hope I’m not mistaken in putting my faith in you.”

Whatever Clarke had expected when she walked into this office, it wasn’t that.


End file.
